Xu Kun had not fulfilled the promise Nightingale had planned when they were captured—to rescue their families after the war.
That had originally been their condition for surrender, but this could not be blamed on Xu Kun.
When the nest was overturned, no egg remained intact. Not only the ordinary angel citizens left behind in Heaven, but even the 4,033 members of the Fallen Angel Legion and all the Saint Pillar Inheritors, including Lumiel himself, had been unable to escape disaster.
From the moment Heaven changed hands and Belial took the stage, their ending had already been decided.
Xu Kun had not saved their families, but he had genuinely preserved the lives of these people who had fought for Heaven.
If he had not taken them into the Heavenly Ladder, then their only fates would have been execution at Xu Kun's hands amid public outrage, or fleeing back to Heaven to live and die alongside their families.
If sacrificing themselves could have saved their families, they would naturally have been willing to do so.
But the reality was that whether they lived or died, the families Belial had left behind in Heaven were doomed to die.
Without Xu Kun capturing them, there would merely have been another 360,000 dead souls.
Though they were immersed in grief over their families' deaths, the debt of gratitude for saving their lives was still real.
Like those angel maidens whom Belial had sent to Xu Kun's side long ago, they had become the Angel Race's last remaining sparks.
Yet fortune and misfortune depended on each other. After hardship came the dawn.
Just like now...
Zhan Rourou, who had not joined the great army attempting to claim the Fuxi Zither, opened her eyes and nodded at Xu Kun. "I'm ready."
Xu Kun turned his gaze